Position of the party, social and cultural issues from left (0) to right (10) Figure 5. Party positions based on ideological stance towards social and cultural issues. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 199 2 8 00 2 0 00 2 2 00 2 4 00 2 6 00 2 8 01 2 0 01 2 2 01 2 4 01 2 6 01 2 8 020 Social democrats Liberals Christian democrats Conservatives Populist radical right Moreover, it is worth noting that conservative and Christian democratic parties share a more traditional set of positions related to social and cultural issues than social democrats and liberals. They are sceptical of expanded personal freedoms and favour order, tradition and stability, giving important moral authority to the government in this regard. While conservative and Christian democratic parties have a relatively stable position on these issues, populist radical right parties exhibit a gradual tendency towards the adoption of more conservative positions on social and cultural issues. This finding stays in line with the existing research, which shows that the increasing electoral power of the populist radical right has not led to its moderation, but rather to its radicalisation. 31 It is not far-fetched to suggest, therefore, that we see little to no signs of the populist radical right toning down its agenda. Rather than moderate itself, it seems a more popular strategy is to continue being“the stick behind the door”. By continuously advocating stricter positions on the cultural dimension, the populist radical right aims to give more importance and weight to the issues it defends, so that the population in general is more aware of these problems and the solutions proposed by the populist radical right. 32 We further illustrate this in Figure 6, where we combine the previous observations about party families’ ideological stances on both economic and social and cultural issues on a single two-dimensional graph. We notice that, even if there is some movement within party families in terms of their ideological stances throughout the years, that movement remains minimal – especially if we consider the full spectrum within which parties can move. All changes are rather small, indicating that party families do not overhaul their positions from one day to another. Any changes they make are both around the margins and gradual. As The transformation of the mainstream right and its impact on(social) democracy 27